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- blandthrax, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26Tools -> Options -> Mail Format ... uncheck Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages.
- BostonVaulter, on 10/12/2007, -9/+28I love OpenOffice.org I can use it for nearly all of my needs at college. Well all work needs at least. I whole heartedly reccomend it to everyone. Best of all, it's COMPLETELY FREE!
- mc1123, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18you know...you wouldn't seem so annoying...if...you...just..laid...off...the...pauses.
- Promantarius, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15While I'm of the opinion that countering individual points is incredibly childish, the proponents of Open Office were just as bad by bagging out Microsoft Office in their advertisements, so I won't push that point any further. However, some points you made were somewhat inaccurate (Open Office can be installed via network 'silently', as with most programs), and I'd have to disagree on the scare tactics thing (see "Genuine Advantage" phone-home articles).
It's true, Microsoft Office is a far more effective tool than Open Office when it comes to just about everything they're designed to do (though I guess you can't really beat the "value for money" part of OO). Everything will 'rip-off' everything else eventually, combining ideas and trying to do something better is the nature of product/service competition, to look down on a community of open-source developers working as volunteers for using ideas that have come before them isn't right...
I'm confident that in time Open Source communities will come to the realisation that you're never going to get a product to match up to a paid one unless you get some serious organisation and planning going (people just seem to code whatever interests them at the time). Once they get there (some are getting there), Microsoft might have a challenge to it's empire. Till then, if you wish to use Microsoft Office, that's your choice. If you like Open Office and want to use that instead, that's also your choice. Just please don't start the petty point-counterpoint stuff again =( - jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -35/+44> "Like MS-Office, OpenOffice.org 2 is a complete office suite, with a word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, drawing, and database."
except office includes a decent email / collaboration / PIM application
> "Like MS-Office, OpenOffice.org 2 will happily use all your existing office files in MS-Word, MS-Excel, and MS-Powerpoint format"
except open office's interpretation of any proper office format file is at best, not great. Use anything but the standard office options in a document and you're screwed.
> "Unlike MS-Office, OpenOffice.org 2 is free of charge to use for any purpose: domestic, educational, government, commercial "
unlike openoffice, microsoft office is built for business, educational and government large scale deployments where sitting down at a desk with a cd to install the software costs money. Unlike open office microsoft includes a wide range of corporate /education and large scale licensing programs which give the licesees a wide range of excellent benefits, such as training (online and offline), support, and the excellent ability for licensees users to install the office software at home, or on personal laptops for free.
> "Unlike MS-Office, you don't have to worry that you may be taken to court to prove you have a valid licence"
unlike openoffice, microsoft doesn't use scare tactics to imply anyone that uses a competitors product will be taken to court, despite being legal license holders.
>" Unlike MS-Office, OpenOffice.org 2 includes valuable extra features, such as the ability to create pdf files"
Office 2007 beta DOES include the ability to export to PDF for free, including the ability to export to ISO standard PDFs. Unlike openoffice, microsoft includes a whole eco-system of other free content designed and created by microsoft and other ISVs which offer a whole world of additional functionality that OO can only dream of. Unlike OO, MSO offers the ability for applications to talk together using scripting languages and APIs to deliver integrated solutions, such as enterprise collaboration / IM and document management systems using technologies such as Live Communication Server, or SharePoint.
> "Unlike changing to MS-Office 2007, changing to OpenOffice.org 2 does not require you to learn how to use your software all over again. Indeed, reports have shown migration to OpenOffice.org 2 is 90% cheaper than migrating to MS-Office 2007."
unlike OO, microsoft have realised that the current way of working, with endless embedded drop down menus, and ever increasingly complex static toolbars simply enforces the mindset that users are not getting the full worth of the software from the software, and have innovated to come up with a universally accepted user interface modification which OO have yet to rip off, in the same way they have bit for bit ripped off other microsoft applications. Migration from office 2000/2003 -> OO would actually result in less functionality for a user than they currently get, especially if they currently use an exchange / outlook environment. - crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12actually, there is a OO installer for windows.
- ModernTenshi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Well, for generic, everyday use, OOo is just fine and dandy, and the price can't be beat. I can understand that it would likely not find a place in large corporations, but for college students and parents at home, OOo is perfect. I ran workshops that informed students of open source applications, and OOo was one of the software titles I demonstrated, and summarily handed out for free to each attendee. Nearly every single one of them came up to me over the next few days and said how wonderful the applications were, especially OOo. Some of them had already given several copies to their friends and family! Needless to say, I made dozens of people happy over the next few months, and can only immagine how many more I've made happy through them.
OOo and the power of FOSS gave me the power to do that, which is friggin' awesome. - RIPtechtv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Whats funny is I like the idea of open source but I rarely use anything that is Open source. I use Windows over Linux, I use Office over Open Office, I use Opera over Firefox, ... I just find the quaility better in things that are not open source. That might change in the future but for know I will stick with office. I have not yet tryed the new office but I want to very soon.
- phbradley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It's a competitor because, value for money, OO is a good product, since it's free. But in real terms, productivity etc, it's doesn't come close to 2007. It's a valuable project, certainly, that keeps the pressure on big companies to keep innovating, and it prevents them from raising the prices too high. But given a choice between the two, I'd choose Office software over OO without a shadow of a doubt
- lostboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7OOo is in most peoples opinions not up to spec when compared to MS Office. Especially when you compare it to the new 2007 version. Now people are trying to take an ad out in the newspapers (10 thousand dollars cost no less) for a product that just can't compare to MS Office. There will always be strong opinions on both sides of the fence, but face it there isn't currently enough support for OOo to make it a competitor, and there are good practical reasons for this OOo people, it just doesn't cut the mustard yet.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Why should the developer of the software matter at all? This insane Microsoft = Evil and Anything Else = Cool does nothing but reduce the amount of credibility the Open Source community gets from the Corporate World and the Average consumer.
- JonVisc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The biggest problem that now faces OO is the ribbon functionality. While the competed with 2003, the new interface gives Office 2007 a fresh new look that users might flock towards, more for the sake of it looking better than anything else (there is supposedly improved functionality, but that is debatable at least in my opinion). I don't think for OO to compete they have to switch to the same style as 2007, but I think it will be harder to push people to move from Office 2003 to OO when there is "more of the same." I actually believe people would be more inclined to buy 2007 because it *looks* like there is more/new features.
Also TubaTechno2 is right, Outlook is an incredible asset for large corporations whose workers have meetings and need reminders and updates all the time. - leszek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5there is thunderbird and evolution
- durandal2005, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Does OO.o even have anything like Outlook? I'm pretty sure it doesn't, since OO.o is competing with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. If you're looking for something to replace Outlook, you should be looking at Evolution, a totally separate project.
- bleutuna, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6There is no valid Outlook alternative on the market. OpenOffice has a great number of other products, but they don't have anything that can compete with what Outlook does. Until they do, MS has the upperhand.
And, as someone who used OpenOffice since PRE version 1 - I have to say I've switched back to Office with the beta release of 2007. It's beautiful, there IS increased functionality and exciting new usaiblity. It's just more 'fun' to use. - PicklePower, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I find that OO, because they did copy Office to a certain point, is a bit messy. The features aren't as organized as they could be, and if they want to keep ahead of Office they might want to try to implement some features of their own without waiting for Office (dual monitors in PowerPoint, hardware acceleration on transitions). Office 2007 is finally fixing a lot of problems, problems that OO has had the time to fix and haven't. That, and I feel that Office runs a lot faster.
- gameboyhippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You know, I have openoffice.org on my home systems (Debian) and MS Office on my work system (Windows XP). I must say that although I'm not a fan of Windows, I really like MS Office better. It is one of the few Microsoft Apps I like better than the FOSS alternatives. If only I can get that running in Linux without having to buy a license for cross-over as well...
- awoodhouse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5awesome...OK maybe it's not as good as Microsoft Office (it ain't!) but it's a) free b) not from Microsoft.
Now, .if only there was a decent Mac OSX universal binary that didn't need X11. Anyone tried the NeoOffice alpha? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7".but now where near good enough for the corporate environment."
Who says? I use it in my business, several of my corporate customers "discovered" OOo, one all their own. They showed it to me one day like it was some big prize.
OO takes a few seconds longer to launch the first time because it has to load the Java runtime environment. But once it's up and running it's every bit as fast and capable as MS Office.
The OpenOffice team has done an amazing job. A small group of programmers puts together a productivity suite that has a surprising amount of functionality and nearly rivals a product with billions of R&D and legions of paid staff. ROFL! If that's all better MSFT can do against the OO team, then they're PATHETIC! - kettlechips, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"unlike openoffice, microsoft doesn't use scare tactics to imply anyone that uses a competitors product will be taken to court, despite being legal license holders."
I guess you missed Microsoft's 'Get the Facts' campaign? - borchard76, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6MS Office 2007 is a good product. I will use it in the future for one simple reason: 100,000+ columns and 1,000,000+ rows in Excel 2007.
The ribbon is neat, but really, the extra data handling is much more important to me. OO.org needs to compete with this. - Pureblade, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I personally do use MS Office; I just think it works better. I think that a lot of users of OO do so mainly to fight the 'man', so to speak. If evaluated on their own merits, developers aside, I think MS Office is at least a little bit better. However, I do not use Outlook. I do not use any program. All my mail from all my old accounts is redirected to my GMail account, since it is so much more convenient to use and access from everyone.
- awoodhouse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7The developer doesn't matter - I don't like any overpriced buggy bloatware ;)
- loganz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3but.. i cant write it off of my business taxes if its free
wait come to think about it, i cant write off a bootlegged copy of office that i couldnt afford in the first place. - IQ70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It runs at the same speed on similarly configured Dell too.
- ucytheynv, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Office 2007 really is the best on eyet. It really is nice looking and a lot easier to use.
- MoeB, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4http://why.bother.with.openoffice.org =d
- NeoRicen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6I should specify that the main reason I don't use OpenOffice is it's incredibly slow, Office 2007 is extremely fast on my iMac (Boot Camp).
Also OpenOffice feels EXTREMELY dated, looks and feels like Office 2000 and it's also messy.
Open Source does NOT equal good software, it's prone to the same problems as closed source software, if not more problems. - tomm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3OOo is really up against it, as MSO is actually a fantastic product, with none of the pitfalls and worries that go hand in hand with many of MS's other products. FireFox is popular because, as well as being better than IE6, it appeared at a time when spyware and security issues were a major problem with IE.
Anyway, I considered switching to OOo a few months ago, but didn't, for two main reasons:
1. Just about every workplace in the UK (and certainly the ones I have experience of) use MSO - for compatibiliy of documents and (most importantly) presentations, you need to stick with MSO.
2. OOo is horribly sluggish - the result, I expect, of the disasterous decision to write it in Java, rather than a nice fast efficient language. I don't want to have to wait longer every time I open a document (which may happen tens of times a day) and I certainly don't want to have to upgrade my PC to account for OOo's inefficient design.
MSO works well, and it works better than OOo. And now it's leapt ahead, yet again, with the release of 2007.
$10k wasted? - CopyNinja, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I have open office, its all i need simply being a home user.
- BassCadet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6I've been using Office 2007 for the past few weeks now and I cannot imagine going back to OpenOffice.
Kudos to the OO team for making a free product but it really isn't even in the same league as MS Office and I agree with the above poster who says that people on digg get carried away with their pro-open source cheerleading. - Fanon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That's because alot of OS software is Java-based, which is slower than Christmas. Granted, it's not as slow as it used to be, but it still leaves much to be desired.
- Dan100, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Office 2007 eats OOo for breakfast. The ribbon allows me to do much more complex tasks in much less time. The final version will not be free, but it will be money well spent for me.
- mooninite, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I don't know where *you* work, but in my corporate environment I use OO all time time. Everyone else uses Word and Excel... I get away with OO just fine. I open their spreadsheets, and I can reply with the same XLS file format. They can open it fine. They never know I'm using something open source.
So make like a tree and leave. - EvilCheeseWedge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3That's a sad little ad. How many times has Microsoft sued mom and pop over not having a valid license? From my understanding with Windows XP piracy, Microsoft doesn't take you to court, instead, they offer you a damn good deal to purchase a license. Plus, just because your software is free, doesn't mean all is, so just because you can use OpenOffice for free, doesn't mean you can use Microsoft Office for free.
So with the spirit of OpenOffice's advertisement in mind, I encourage everyone to go to your local car dealership, take a test drive, keep the car, and then complain when you wind in court.
/I actually like Office 2007
/oh noes it cost money! - kkaefer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4To be honest, I really tried to convert to Open Office. I even removed MS Office completely from my hard drive. But after some months (!), I turned back to MS Office. I do not like Microsoft in particular nor do I like Windows (I switched to Mac OS some weeks ago). MS Office just runs faster than Open Office does.
- phbradley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would marry OOo if it had the ribbon, which has massively improved the design and data presentation of the work I produce, and the live previews when you scroll down the fonts list, and Styles, and all the semantic data handling, and Outlook, and all the online collaboration stuff, etc etc
the problem is, it doesn't. Now, with OOo, you definitely get what you pay for. The probelm is, you also egt what you pay for with Office 2007. - avann, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If only OpenOffice.org Writer would start faster. That's the only part of OO I use, sometimes I don't bother waiting and just grab good old Wordpad. No fancy headers, but it starts in 4 seconds.
And the settings menu... and setting up the language files... oh god. Someone get them an interface designer or something. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8"I think Office 2003 is just fine, but I hate how MS Word HAS to run if you are using Outlook."
No, it has not. Just deactivate the option to use Word as the standard e-mail editor for Outlook. - xtremesniper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2True true... I developed in Java in high school. It is pretty slow.
- xtremesniper, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Why use Open Office when you already have Office 2007? Feature vs feature, Office still comes out on top even if Open Office is free. Something about open source makes almost all of those open programs run a little more sluggish than closed programs. I don't know, I'll just stick to Office until I need a suite to install on linux or mac..
- SilentBob4, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Has anyone seen the ad campaign OpenOffice.org has started? It's a good cause so join in! More info at http://madpenguin.org/cms/html/62/7036.html
- EvilCheeseWedge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It seems like they're saying you can get MSO for free, like OpenOffice, if you want to go to court. MSO doesn't need to be free just because OpenOffice is.
- Dan100, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And having read the linked page, it's clear Sun/OOo is getting scared and rather desperate...
- h0mi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not sure if I have the latest open office installed, but I'm struggling with trying to figure out how the spreadsheet does something that excel does... in excel go to data & you'll see "text to columns". How do you do "text to columns" in open office?
- awoodhouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1let alone trying to get it to number headings properly!
- tato, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Great comments from both camps but for the sake of argument, let's say the big bosses at Microsoft lost all their marbles and said "You know what... from this day forth, MS Office 2007 and all succeeding versions will be free!".
Which one would you use then? - fvaldivia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1in my case, i dont use word, some powerponit, but, excel, im sorry to say, is THE tool, and OO spreadsheet isnt by far the same as excel, i deal with 50-150MB spreadsheets, and there are functions that are not available in OO.im sorry ive tried it, but excel is the best in its turf.
- TiberiusDRAIG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As much as I love OpenOffice and I recommend it to anyone who is in need of basic office tools (just the other day I installed it on my friend's new PC), I wouldn't be without Microsoft Office. I have been using Office 2000 since it came out and I payed full retail price for it, and in my opinion it is one of the few Microsoft products that is worth every penny. There is nothing about OO that is motivating me to switch. As I said however, if you need an office suite without the price tag, go for OO as it is a very good piece of software. Just don't expect to get everything you do with MS Office, as you will be sorely disappointed.
How long till the anti-MS fanboys mod me down? - awoodhouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most people use a very very small fraction of the functionality of Office. I'd settle for OO on my mac but X11 apps suck somewhat and neooffice intel is alpha
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